MnPALS Reference/Instruction Workday - April 4, 2011

I attended my first in person MnPALS workday on Monday, April 4, 2011. Sessions I attended at the Reference/Instruction workday were:
Opening session - Perry Madden gave an overview of what's happening at PALS along with upgrades to MnPALS Plus and requests for ideas for further upgrades.
Breakout 1: The Legislative Website: How to Find Bills, Laws, and Other Helpful Resources - this was a very informative session and was a great introduction to the Legislative website. There is such a wealth of information available here and we were given a few tips to help us in our searches. One such tip was under the Statutes section...in order to find previous editions, you need to click on "Read more..." and that will lead to Previous Editions that go back to 1941. Another tip was to make use of the Index; many times using that to search can be more useful than doing a Keyword search in the statutes. Other points of interest...the Vetoes Database and the Legislative Time Capsule.
Breakout 2: Information Literacy for First Year Students and Beyond -- interesting dialogue about how different campuses insert information literacy into the curriculum. Concordia's "Library Launch" is a mandatory session for all students in the First year Program so they know everyone has had a least one basic session. Many students get additional sessions through their First Year Program that is more targeted to the topics they've selected. Minnesota State University, Moorhead, has put together an audio walking tour and map and culminates with an online quiz students need to take in order to avoid spending too much time on the logistics during valuable Library Orientation sessions. The availability of these tours have specific start and end dates so that instructors know who has/hasn't completed the activity. I can't recall the college who stated that they now have a required Information Literacy 2-credit course for all students who are completing an A.A. degree. I love this idea as it would help prepare students who are moving onto a 4-year degree be better prepared for their additional two years of college. The book Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning was also recommended and I see we have a copy being added to our Worthington Library collection so I will look forward to reading that!
Breakout 3: Staffing Models for Reference -- it became very apparent early on in this large group discussion that understanding your student population, along with available staffing, is key to how libraries staff reference desks. Although some libraries continue to staff a traditional reference desk with librarians, many have or are moving to the "on-call" model where another staff person (or a student worker in some cases) is at the desk and can field 75-85% of the questions that come to the Reference desk while knowing that the other 15-25% can be referred to an on-call librarian. There seems to be an increase across MnSCU of computer-related, technical-orientated questions that come to the reference desk and would not need to be handled by professional librarians. This is a debate that will rage on, but in my opinion knowing ones institution, faculty, and students help shape the reference desk staffing. There isn't a one-size fits all approach that will work.
The day ended with a LibJam which served as an open forum to demonstrate online tools being used and an open ask-a-question session for people to generate ideas. Perry demonstrated an Open Source tool ODIN has been testing that serves as a cross-searchable tool (i.e., brings back articles, ebooks, books, etc. that are pulled in from other databases). This is based on Pazpar2. MnPALS may consider exploring this if libraries will commit some financial support to the exploration.